The complaint and confidence of the remnant

Psalm 31 is a proof how Jesus could use devout and holy
expressions of a psalm, and indeed pass through all in spirit,
without its having a literal application to Him. Here is found the
expression He used, "Into thy hand I commit my spirit," which was
in the fullest sense true. But the psalm continues, "For thou hast
redeemed me, O Jehovah God of truth." He added Father. Yet I doubt
not that His spirit had got into the comfort of divine delight
again. Still the words, "thou hast redeemed me," cannot apply.* So
the whole complaint of the psalm is, besides David, the complaint
and confidence of the remnant connecting the two principles, trust
and righteousness, and looking for guidance for Jehovah's name's
sake, and deliverance when surrounded by enemies. The godly man had
called on Jehovah. His name was in question. On His goodness, laid
up for them that trusted in Him, he counted; and this in the midst
of a life spent in sighing. Distress pressed upon him, and drank up
his strength. Yet, tried for faithfulness, friends and
acquaintances fled from him. Such will be the condition of the
remnant. How truly Christ entered into it, I need not say. But the
time of deliverance, and of all that in any time the saint should
be under and pass through, were in God's hand not the enemy's,
though he might rage. And in the adversities Jehovah knew his soul,
for he walks in the knowledge of covenant-relationship. The
presence of Jehovah was a tabernacle and a hiding-place. In the
pressure of his spirit, the godly thought himself cast off; but
when he cried, Jehovah heard. In all the rage around (v. 13, 14) he
cried to Jehovah as his God. The result he now celebrates, and
encourages the saints in the last two verses, and all that hope in
Jehovah. Whatever sorrows they are in, Jehovah helps the faithful
and judges the proud.

{*The only possible sense it could have as to Him was the
deliverance of His soul at that moment as a fact, from the curse He
bore for us, in which He had perfectly glorified God as to our
sins, and as made sin for us. But the Lord does not use it. But
though He had as a fact yet to die, its bitterness and sting were
past.}

Psalm 31 the expression of the Spirit of Christ, though His own
relationship as Son was different

This, in a certain sense, closes and sums up the experimental
expression by the Spirit of the state of the remnant? and fully
unfolds it. In the psalm that follows, forgiveness in grace is
spoken of. Then there is a clearer apprehension and more objective
confidence and judgment of all around, till we come to Psalm 38,
and Psalm 39, which have a peculiar character of their own. Of
course, deliverance is not yet come; but the sentiment expressed is
become more that of favour in light than confidence out of the
depths. How fully this Psalm 31 is the expression of the Spirit of
Christ must be obvious to every divinely-taught reader. Yet His own
relationship was different. He was Son, and commends His spirit to
His Father in death, not to Jehovah to save Him from it; and, as we
have seen in the preface, prays for His enemies who crucified Him,
instead of demanding vengeance upon them. This demand of His Spirit
in the remnant is according to His mind in that day. In Him
personally it must have been otherwise; for He came in grace, and
was giving His life a ransom for Israel and for many. Hence He
passed through all in perfection with His Father in Gethsemane, and
gives Himself up then, as being His will, to death. Yet, as to the
sorrow and trial, He went through all. And the prophetic Spirit in
the Psalms expresses in the denunciatory words what will certainly
be accomplished as the consequence of the wicked enmity of the Jews
and heathens too at the close; and will become living demands in
the mouth of the remnant, whose only and necessary deliverance
these judgments will be.

Christ did ask life, and it was given in resurrection and
glory, as Psalm 21 shows; but not, as we know, in His being spared
here. The path of life led for Him through death in the
accomplishment of redemption, though He could not be holden of
it. Thus in spirit He entered into all their affliction. The
literal application in the writer's mind was to his own feelings;
the prophetical is to the godly remnant in the latter day. The word
translated "iniquity," in verse 10, should, I doubt not, be
"distress." But the fulness of the various motives and feelings
brought together in this psalm require a further brief notice. I
have already remarked how the two grounds, so frequently found, of
the appeal of the saint's trust in God, and righteousness as the
motive and ground of it, are both brought together here. The name's
sake of Jehovah is also added here. In verses 3-6 we have His utter
rejection of the followers of idolatrous vanities. In verse 7
Jehovah's goodness is recognised as mercy. He has known the soul of
the believer in adversities a sweet thought, how dark soever all
may have been. And deliverance was granted (v. 9, 10) He pleads his
extreme present distress. The first eight verses are a kind of
preface of general principles; now it is the pressure of his
present state. He was a reproach to enemies, specially to
neighbours a fear to his acquaintance; so mean, despised, and yet
hated and rejected, was he. It is the portion of a divine
character, of God Himself, to be both. Man neglects a despised
person; but he never does God, or what is of Him.* They will bring
Him low if He puts Himself low, or those that are His; but will
fear and hate Him too. He is forgotten, yet slandered, and the
active enemy plotting against his life. Thus verses 9-13 give the
condition the Spirit of Christ, or Christ Himself, holds in the
world.

{*What thief would, if hung, revile another thief hung by his
side? But the condemned thief did so to Christ.}

It is a most striking picture in verse 14. He trusts in
Jehovah. All that is to befall him is, after all, in His
hand. Another motive now is pleaded. He has called on Jehovah. It
is the lying lips which should be put to silence
(v. 18). Confidence in goodness laid up for them is there, and the
hiding in God's presence for the time of evil (v. 20). Verse 21
celebrates the faithfulness of Jehovah. Verses 23, 24, encourage
the saints by it. Thus, with the extremest distress, all the pleas
of the faithful are beautifully brought together here. All these
past psalms have been the feelings of Israel under the pressure of
distress, and sought deliverance from it. And this Israel will do.